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Invasive Pneumococcal Disease Occurs At a Higher Frequency in Cancer Patients: Presented at ICAAC/IDSA

By Maggie Schwarz

WASHINGTON, DC -- October 28, 2008 -- The incidence of invasive pneumococcal disease is much greater in adults with both haematological and nonhaematological malignancies than in the overall adult population, according to research presented here at the 48th Annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) and Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) 46th Annual Meeting.

"Cancer patients should get pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine and be targeted for an expanded valency conjugate vaccine," asserted lead author Alexander Wong, MD, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta.

Dr. Wong performed a retrospective chart review of all cases of invasive pneumococcal disease from 2000 to 2004 in Alberta, Canada. He reported the results here in a late-breaking poster presentation on October 25.

Compared to the overall adult population aged 18 years or older (11 cases per 100,000 annually) a statistically significant increased rate of invasive pneumococcal disease was found in those patients with lung cancer, multiple myeloma, chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, acute myeloid leukaemia, acute lymphocytic leukaemia, Hodgkin's lymphoma and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

There also was an increased prevalence of serotype 6A in those individuals with these underlying malignancies (11 of 83, 13.3% vs 48 of 1273, 4% [P < .001]), but no other serotypes predominated.

Overall, 48 of 83 cases (58%) were caused by serotypes in the experimental 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine.

"These patients [with malignancies] should be offered pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine and be targeted for an expanded valency conjugate vaccine," Dr. Wong reiterated.

Prevalence data for solid organ and haematological malignancies were obtained from the Alberta Cancer Registry.

[Presentation title: Increased Incidence of Invasive Pneumococcal Disease in Patients With Underlying Malignancy. Abstract L-688]

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